The struggle to find balance between our work and our lives runs much deeper than our daily personal battles; it is a societal issue worsened by income inequalities, according to a sociology professor at the University of Hawaii.

Susan Wurtzburg of the University of Hawaii’s Department of Sociology shed some light on why a seemingly easy battle to fix our desired work-life balance feels so far-fetched to most.

“I think what happened was, after WWII there were ‘labor saving devices’ for in the home and at work — dishwashers, washing machines, and things like photo copiers at work,” she said, noting that the idea of “leisure time” was born as a result. “Work-life balance is developed out of the idea that, at some point, Americans would have more time available for leisure because we wouldn’t have to work so hard. Instead, what has happened is everything costs more, our country has a huge gap in income — and I think most Americans are not aware of how huge the gap is — which means the average person is working way more than 40 hours per week.”

Especially in Hawaii, where the cost of paradise is notoriously high, many residents are working multiple jobs, she added.

“Just with my students that I see on this island, they are just dashing from class to working several jobs — working full time, and maybe trying to occasionally surf,” she said. “It seems like we’ve lost a lot of quality of life, and an additional impetus is our whole economy is based on people consuming, and we have no limits to our consumption. We’re constantly expending stuff on things that we don’t really need, and we’re working harder to get these things with the idea that if we have more possessions we will somehow be happier.”

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